


Falling Down Broken

by grimorie



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-02
Updated: 2010-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:33:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimorie/pseuds/grimorie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>friends died on you and left you only with broken pieces of yourself and you were never the same.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Down Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Firefly does not belong to me!

Mal dreams sometimes of the great ships landing in the fields, of the cruel engines sounding above him, of watching in an astonished, half unbelieving state at the cruel damning blow of fate.

In those times he would wake tasting ashes in his mouth, he would rise, switch on the lights and touch the metallic coolness of _Serenity's_ walls. The mirror he would avoid, Mal tells himself it's because of the damned lighting, wouldn't make him pretty and such; certainly it was not because of the haunted look in his eyes.

Inevitably Mal would find himself checking every lock, every door and most times he'd meet Book along the way or River or worse, Inara; thankfully, never Kaylee.

Mal never examined in himself why it worried him their wanderings about in the dark, in the late hour when they should be in bed safe. Mal ordered, Mal cajoled, and Mal taunted them back to their quarters standing his ground until he hears doors close or better, locked and then he'd move on to the next door or finally to where he could see the stars; vivid in the black matte of space.

Mal never considered himself a hero, not after Serenity Valley where they'd hang a man so low all he had was his name and that smidgen of dignity left in the dirt next to the bodies of men he once called friends. Like how he called the crew 'friend', which wasn't smart, friends died on you and left you only with broken pieces of yourself and you were never the same.

Mal evacuates Wash from the pilot's seat and takes his place in the Wash warmed chair and looks out at the stars ignoring the disorienting vertigo of space. Once he took a shine to a planet not far from here, Alliance free and anarchic to boot, his kind of folk as long as the folk don't start eating his flesh.

And because he was truly alone with only the stars to keep him company Mal allows a second's thought on how the ragtag crew came about to be the closest thing of a family he got, suddenly images-- bodies and triumphant cruel ships. His hands shook he cursed his lack of sleep and grabbed at the controls, never thinking for a moment it was fear. Fear for them and the shattered speck in him they call soul, instead he steadies his hands and maneuvers the ship to the second star to the right and remembers his own words spoken to Simon that first week, 'Keep flying' and he does because that's all he's allowed himself to have: space and stars and _Serenity_.


End file.
